


Illegal Alien

by Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alien/Human Relationships, Awkward Flirting, Fluff and Crack, Getting Together, Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings, Neighbors, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-07-29 03:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16255421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/pseuds/Sandrine%20Shaw
Summary: Chris's new neighbor is weird. Cute, but weird. Fortunately for him, Chris is completely on board with that combination.(Or: How to facilitate interplanetary understanding in less than a month.)





	Illegal Alien

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cherryontop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryontop/gifts).



 

**Thursday**

"Oh no! Sorry! You— I didn't see you. Are you okay?"

It's the third time the guy from apartment 6B has run into Chris this week. _Literally_ ran into him, usually when Chris is getting his mail, envelopes and brochures scattering on the floor. Chris would suspect it to be a somewhat clumsy attempt at flirtation if his neighbor's mortification wasn't so obvious.

He grins and shrugs, crouching down to help the other man pick up the dropped mail. "I'm okay, no big deal. I guess I should be used to it by now."

His neighbor flushes and doesn't look him in the eye when he hands him his stuff. The hint of red on his cheeks gives his dusky skin a nice glow.

"I know! I'm sorry," he says again. "It's just so hard to see properly in here."

Chris's eyes are automatically drawn to the bright neon lamps on the ceiling that fill the entire corridor with an almost unpleasant, glaring light. It's pretty much the most well-lit house Chris has ever seen.

"Right," he says dubiously, brushing himself off as he gets up. 

His neighbor is weird. Cute, but weird. Fortunately for him, Chris is completely on board with that combination. He holds out his hand. "Since we keep crashing into each other, maybe we should start with a proper introduction? I'm Chris. I live in 6A." 

For a long moment, all the other man does is stare at Chris's hand until it becomes awkward. Chris is already considering the least embarrassing way to retreat when his hand is finally enveloped in a strong, warm grip. "I'm... Noah?"

"Is that a question?" Chris teases, because he can be a little shit, and now he knows that flustered is a really good look on Noah, he's not at all opposed to helping it along a little.

And there it is again: the adorable blush he was waiting for. Noah ducks his head. "Ah, no. I'm definitely Noah. No question about it. Nice to meet you, Chris." 

"Likewise. But I really gotta be going. I have an appointment at eight." He waits a beat. "Um. Could I have my hand back, maybe?"

Noah looks down at where his fingers are still wrapped around Chris's. "Oh, right."

He lets go and slips on a pair of dark sunglasses before stepping out into the rain with an awkward goodbye, leaving Chris staring after him. 

Very cute. _Extremely_ weird. 

Shaking his head, he goes about his day, but the smile won't leave his face for a long time.

*

**Saturday**

When Chris returns from having lunch with his sister Annie and enters the building through the back entrance, the shrill, agitated voice of Mrs. Lennox from 5B carries through the stairwell. From what he's catching of her lecture, she's unhappy about the noise level in her apartment. 

Chris rounds the corner and finds Noah standing with his back against the wall and a wide-eyed, aghast expression on his face, Mrs. Lennox leaning into his space and pointing a finger at him as she continues her rant. 

"I can hear every little step you make. Always tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap! Do you ever sit still?" she's saying, waggling her finger in Noah's face. It's kind of hilarious, because she's about two heads smaller than him, a little old lady with white hair and big round glasses who looks like a sweet grandma but behaves like a Disney villain. Chris has to stifle a small laugh.

But when Noah catches his eye, there's panic in his gaze. The situation clearly calls for a heroic rescue.

Chris clears his throat and walks up to them. "Oh, Noah, hi! Good thing I caught you. The delivery guy dropped off a packet for you this morning. I'll be out later, so maybe you can come up with me and get it now?" He levels his most winsome smile at the woman glaring daggers at him. "Hello, Mrs. Lennox. Sorry to interrupt. I'm afraid I need to borrow Noah for a little while. You don't mind, do you?"

Before she can get a word in, he pushes past, squeezing between the two of them. He gives Noah's arm a little tug until he finally gets with the program and follows Chris.

Up on their floor, when Chris turns to his door, Noah hovers at his shoulder. 

"I wasn't aware I'd ordered anything," he says. 

With anyone else, Chris would think it was a joke, but Noah looks like he's waiting to be handed whatever delivery he didn't recall making. Weird, but not that weird. Annie has a habit of online shopping that borders on addiction, and Chris is well-acquainted with her excitement whenever she receives a new pair of shoes or five that she will swear she can't remember buying. 

Maybe Noah is like that. He doesn't really seem the type, but appearances can be deceptive, right?

Chris shrugs. "You didn't. You just looked like you needed to be saved from good old Mrs. L down there and it was the first thing I could think of."

"Oh." It's hard to tell whether Noah is relieved or disappointed that Chris won't be handing him any kind of package. "That's very kind of you."

He smiles, and Chris impulsively reaches out and squeezes his arm, feeling solid muscle under soft cotton. Nice. He catches Noah's gaze and gets lost in the stormy sea green of his eyes for a moment.

"Always happy to help," he says belatedly, which is kind of lame – but hey, why should Noah have the monopoly on awkwardness between the two of them?

*

**Wednesday**

Noah opens the door in nothing but a pair of blue boxer shorts. Tight blue boxer shorts. Chris tries very hard to keep his eyes fixed on the other man's face, but he knows he's failing.

"Um, hi. I was just in the middle of making dinner and I noticed that I'm out of salt. Could you maybe help a guy out?"

Noah blinks. He twists his head around and looks searchingly behind himself like he's expecting a packet of salt to materialize in the hallway. The apartment is completely dark, making Chris wonder if he'd interrupted the guy's sleep or something. Or maybe he isn't alone. 

Then Noah turns back and looks at Chris with serious eyes. "I'm sorry, I don't own any salt."

It could be a brush-off, but it doesn't quite sound like one, too genuine and confused.

"You... don't own any salt?" Chris echoes incredulously, because, really, who doesn't have fucking _salt_ at home? It's the most basic thing. Even his old college friend Josh, who live solely off take-out and frozen pizza and whose fridge is usually empty apart from a six-pack and half-finished boxes of fried noodles, keeps salt and pepper in the kitchen.

Noah cocks his head. "Is that strange? But you don't have any either!"

Which— Okay, yeah, Noah got him there. Because of course Chris has at least three fully stocked salt mills in the spice cabinet, from pale pink Himalayan salt to the fancy black stuff he bought on a artisan food market his ex-boyfriend dragged him to and which he never used. But he can't well say that now that he came over under the pretext to borrow some from Noah, can he? 

He laughs and scratches his head, fingers tangling in his blond curls. "True. I'm not exactly in a position to judge other people on their saltlessness," he quips. 

At least Noah seems to take the joke well because he turns a smile on Chris that's disarmingly bright and transforms his entire face. He may be cute when he's all flustered and confused and blushing, but when he smiles like this, he _gorgeous_. It makes Chris's heart flutter a little, and heat curls pleasantly uncomfortable in his gut.

Putting on his most winsome smile, he decides to go all in. "So, since my dinner is obviously a bust, lack of salt and all, how about you come over and we order take-out? There's a good Thai place down the street? My treat, since I already interrupted your evening."

Noah's response comes faster and a hell of a lot firmer than Chris expected, given their previous interaction. Unfortunately, it's also pretty much the opposite of what he'd hoped for. 

"I don't eat," Noah says – and wow, that's one unambiguous dismissal if Chris has ever heard one. 

He's still fumbling for a response when the words seem to catch up with Noah, who quickly backtracks. "I mean, of course I eat. We all gotta eat, right? I just meant I'd already eaten. Earlier today. Several times. You know, the normal amount."

Chris aims for another smile, even if it comes out a little strained. "It's okay. I'll just —"

"But we could do something else?" Noah suggests, throwing Chris a curveball, because if the vehement refusal of food wasn't a rejection, he doesn't know what it was supposed to be. No one hates the idea of eating that much.

The thing is, at this point Noah's weirdness might actually be a turn-off no matter how easy on the eyes he may be, if he didn't also seem to be a genuinely sweet guy and Chris had actually started to _like_ him, despite the way their encounters have a habit of dissolving into a giant tangle of awkwardness at some point. 

He shrugs. "Yeah, sure," he agrees before he can talk himself out of it.

*

The evening goes as well as Chris probably should have expected. Meaning, it's nice and it makes his stomach tense with the familiar butterfly feeling of having a crush and it's also so damn confusing and strange that it gives him a tension headache.

Noah keeps giving all these mixed signals. 

He follows Chris to his place, and when Chris lets him pick a movie, he goes straight for Chris's embarrassingly complete Disney collection and picks _Finding Nemo_ , which has always been Chris's favorite, and it looks like they're on the same wavelength.

He even asks Chris to turn down the lights, which kinda makes Chris assume there'll be at least some groping and making out involved. But then Noah places himself in the chair while Chris sits alone on the couch. And when Chris asks if he wants a beer or a slice of the pizza he ordered, he just smiles and declines, looking a bit uncomfortable and out of place.

On the other hand, he seems to be enjoying himself. Noah offers deadpan commentary on the movie that makes Chris crack up. He laughs at all of Chris's jokes, even the silly ones, and his smile is every bit as gorgeous and blinding as before.

"I had a good time," Noah tells him at the door. Before Chris can lean in and try to kiss him, though, he holds out his hand expectantly. 

Well.

Chris probably stares at it every bit as long as Noah stared at his, last Friday down at the mailbox when they'd introduced themselves. 

"So did I," he says finally, taking the proffered hand and giving it a hearty shake. It's not what he was going for, but Noah's grip is firm and warm and his skin is soft against Chris's, and it's better than nothing. They may be moving at glacial speed, but at least they seem to be moving in the right direction. "We should do this again sometime."

"I'd like that," Noah says with a smile.

*

They do it again on Friday, and on Saturday, and on Tuesday the following week.

Chris actually cancels his weekend plans with his sister because Noah asked him if he was free, opening himself to Annie's merciless needling. Who's the guy (nope, he isn't going to tell her, because Noah definitely isn't ready yet for an interrogation)? Have they been dating for long (as much as Chris would like to, he wouldn't necessarily call what he and Noah do 'dating')? And, most importantly, is he cute (oh boy, he is! he really is)?

During the next two weeks, it kind of becomes their thing: Noah drops by Chris's apartment and they watch a Disney movie. Noah doesn't appear to be familiar with a single one of them, but he loves them all, even if he occasionally seems to take them a little too seriously. 

Any attempts Chris makes to get Noah to join him for dinner are thwarted, however. Whether he orders enough take-out to feed half the house or actually cooks himself, he always, invariably, ends up eating alone. He's starting to suspect that Noah is either a really picky eater or has digestion issues he's embarrassed to mention, so Chris eventually gives up and eats before Noah joins him for their movie nights. No need to keep bringing up food if all it does is make the other man uncomfortably fumble for an excuse.

Unfortunately for Chris, it's not just his culinary overtures that remain entirely fruitless, making him wonder if he's losing his touch. In fact, Noah seems to be completely oblivious that Chris is interested in him as anything but a fellow Disney enthusiast. It's frustrating and maddening, but also a little... exciting. Chris has had his history of one-night-stands with guys he met on Grindr or in a club when the spark of attraction rapidly turned into a wildfire as they tumbled into bed together (or onto the couch, or the kitchen counter, or on one memorable occasion, the back alley behind the house), but it was usually over and done with before dawn. And even when it wasn't, it soon turned out that they had little in common when the clothes were back on. It's nice to actually be interested in someone who genuinely wants to spend time with him and is fun to be around. 

So if it takes a little longer to get into Noah's pants, he's willing to work with that. He can wait. He figures if he gets to know Noah now, before anything of the naked-and-sweaty variety happens, at least there won't be any bad surprises later on.

*

**Thursday**

The fire alarm goes off at quarter to two in the morning. The crowd of residents slowly gathers behind the house, shuffling sleepily outside while grumbling over having their nightly rest interrupted.

The two girls from 2C are wearing matching unicorn slippers. Mr. Donnelly from the ninth floor is ushering out a woman who Chris is 99.9% sure isn't Mrs. Donnelly, unless she's wearing a blonde wig and is also suddenly twenty years younger and thirty pounds lighter. Mrs. Lennox is talking the ear off anyone who has the misfortune of standing close by, speculating on who caused the fire with their reckless behavior and how she's always known something like this was going to happen one day. 

Chris is wearing nothing but a pair of old track pants, he's cold and wet from the rain, and this is about the last place he wants to be at 2 a.m. 

"I'm sure it was that boy who lives above me!" Mrs. Lennox is telling Mr. Donnelly's definitely-not-wife, who's just nodding along as if she has any idea what the old lady is talking about. 

Suddenly Chris realizes that there's one familiar face missing from the crowd. He berates himself for not noticing Noah's absence before. He looks up to the 6th floor where Noah's window is pitch black, next to his own brightly lit from when he rushed out without bothering to hit the light switch. Dread makes his gut clench, imagining Noah caught in flames, wracked with coughs, trying desperately to fight his way out.

Before he can think about what he's doing, he's rushing back inside, heart beating in his throat. He hammers against Noah's door, but there's no reaction, no noise from inside.

Maybe Noah's out. Maybe he's with friends, or partying, or spending the night with a boyfriend or girlfriend Chris doesn't know about. Or maybe he's had an accident and is lying unconscious on his kitchen floor. Maybe Mrs. Lennox was right and Noah's place is on fire and the fumes have knocked him out.

Chris fumbles with his key and runs through his living room to the fire exit, almost falling over a pile of travel magazines by the couch. Climbing across the iron railing, he concentrates on maintaining his balance, trying very hard not to look down. On the plus side, with everyone gathered in front of the building, no one will be able to see him making a fool of himself by breaking into his neighbor's apartment with the grace of a blind, newborn deer.

The downside is, of course, that if he loses his slippery hold on the grimy, rain-wet metal and falls, embarrassing himself will be the least of his problems because he'll almost certainly break his neck.

He breathes a sigh of relief when he's finally outside Noah's fire exit and the door gives way to his insistent pulling, a rare advantage to the landlord's steadfast refusal to up the security. 

It's pitch black inside the apartment. 

"Noah? Are you home?" He steps inside, something crunching under his feet. "It's Chris. Sorry for breaking in, but you missed the fire alarm."

No answer.

He hits the light switch and winces when the lamp at the ceiling illuminates the room, even if it's got to be the most low, gloomy light he's ever seen. It takes him a moment to gather his senses and his wits enough to realize he's standing in a room that's completely empty. There's no furniture, no pictures on the walls, nothing. It's almost as if Noah had moved out between Tuesday and today, which is ridiculous.... Isn't it? 

He would have said something, right?

Chris pokes his head into the kitchen, which has all the facilities that came with the apartment but no sign that it was ever used. 

The back of his neck prickles in an ominous way. He knows this is bad, he just can't tell _how_ exactly. Maybe Noah was in witness protection and they had to move him away, or maybe he's some kind of criminal mastermind who used the apartment as a front, or maybe he was never here to begin with and Chris just hallucinated him. 

"Noah?" he calls out again, not actually expecting an answer. "You're not here, aren't you? Shit. What the fuck am I even doing?" 

He should be getting the hell out of there, but there's still the bathroom to check, which he expects o be as pristine and empty as every other room.

It's not.

There's — _something_ in the bathtub. It's completely submerged in water, green and large, only just fitting in. 

Half-curious, half-horrified, Chris walks towards the tub to get a closer look when it suddenly twitches and moves, like a living thing.

"Holy fuck!"

Chris instinctively steps back, stumbling against the toilet. He loses his balance, slipping on the damp tiles, and down he goes. His head makes a horrible hollow sound when it collides with the porcelain, and his sight goes fuzzy for a moment or two.

He blinks a couple of times, eyes fixed on the bathtub where a blurry figure emerges from the water. There's a scream lodged inside his throat, but it won't come out, his mouth opening silently, as if the connection between the speech center in his brain and his vocal cords has been severed. 

The figure leans over him, and Chris shrinks back.

"Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?" The voice is concerned and familiar. 

Chris's vision slowly clears, and he stares at Noah, dripping wet and naked, all dark skin and cropped dark hair and deep green eyes. Chris stares at him, trying to make sense of what he's seeing. When he shakes his head, it's as much denial as an answer to Noah's question. 

"You— What— " There's no good way to ask what he's trying to ask.

Noah grimaces. "I can explain."

Chris really, really, _really_ doesn't think he can. 

"You were trying on a costume for Halloween?" he quips, falling back on humor because the alternative would be to run away screaming and have himself checked into the psych ward.

Noah cocks his head, watching him speculatively. 

"Would you believe that?" he asks. When Chris levels a pointed, deadpan look at Noah, he sighs in resignation. "I didn't think so."

From the outside, a crisp, loud voice from a megaphone announces that it was a false alarm and people are allowed back inside their apartments now. Hysterical laughter bubbles up Chris's throat.

*

They're over at Chris's place again because, unlike Noah, he owns a couch and he really thinks he wants to be sitting down for this.

Noah takes his place next to him this time, like _now_ he's all about physical proximity. He's still very wet – and very, very naked. Physically, he is the perfect imitation of a human man. With extra emphasis on _perfect_. Chris wonders if there's something seriously wrong with him if the sight still makes him feel hot under the collar despite knowing that Noah isn't really— That appearances can be deceptive, and in Noah's case, they are _extremely_ deceptive.

"How's your head?" Noah asks. He sounds both empathic and apologetic, but Chris can't help noticing that the fumbling uncertainty that he thought was part of Noah's personality has dissipated. Noah seems more relaxed than ever, as if now that he's been found out, his biggest concern is off the table. It makes sense, in a way, but Chris still feels a little bitter that yet another assumption he'd made about Noah turned out to be wrong. Even if it's a minor one compared to... the other thing.

"It's fine." He shrugs. "No banging headaches or anything. Pity, because otherwise I could just convince myself I'm concussed and have been imagining this whole thing."

"Does that happen a lot?"

"Couple of times when I was a teenager. I was a pretty clumsy kid. Got banged up a lot. One time after I hit my head, I would swear that I saw a dinosaur in the backyard. Though I'm not sure if that was the concussion talking or just my over-imaginative—" He stops himself, remembering that there are more pressing matters than his injury-prone, friendless childhood. "No, wait, we're not talking about me here. We're talking about you and how you're clearly not what you're pretending to be. Stop distracting me!" 

He pokes his finger against Noah's arm, somewhere between playful and genuinely annoyed. The skin feels clammy under his touch, but no different from regular human skin when people get out of the bath and don't bother to dry themselves. 

"Sorry. It's just— I'm trying to understand your people better." Noah drops his head in his hands, then abruptly straightens his back and looks at his hands like he's seeing them for the first time. "Being human is so _hard_ , you have no idea! I don't know how you do it. You have all those weird social rituals, and you thrive in strong luminous power, and you enjoy orally consuming nutritional substance. And there's no sufficient manual! Every time I think I've come to know how your kind operates, something happens and I realize I'm still as clueless as I was when I arrived here and people avoid me because I fail to blend in. You're the only one who keeps seeking me out, and half the time we talk I have no idea what you're trying to tell me."

It's the most Chris has ever heard Noah say, and the desperation in his voice makes Chris wince, unable to fight down the rush of sympathy at how lost Noah seems and how Chris's behavior probably didn't help. He can see how his attempts to seduce his neighbor would be confusing to someone with no more than a basic understanding of human social norms. 

"I've been flirting with you," he admits. "I'm sorry, I guess you... don't do that?"

Jesus. He's basically been sexually harassing a hapless alien. His mortification even makes the shock over the fact that his neighbor really is an alien in (unreasonably attractive) disguise pale in comparison. A little, anyway.

Noah perks up. "Mating rituals, you mean?"

That's... not how Chris would phrase it. Like, ever. But— "Yeah, I guess. Look, sorry, I didn't mean to offend you —"

"Oh, no, our people do engage in that." 

Chris blinks, taken aback. "You... do?"

"Oh yes, of course." That smile from before is back, the one that Chris fell a little in love with the first time he saw it, and dammit, it still makes his knees go weak. "I mean, we probably do it differently from your people. We wouldn't ask for minerals or attend wildlife documentaries together or seek each other out to share nutrition, but we do court potential partners."

The excitement in Noah's tone suggests that he's either extremely relieved that he can now make sense of Chris's odd human behavior or that the idea of human _mating rituals_ is fascinating to him.

And Chris... well. Chris has always been a bit too curious and too bold when it came to accepting the weird. He's always been too careless about taking risks and leaps of faith, putting his heart and his gut instinct above reason. It's exactly how he ended up with a good dozen concussions during his teenage years and why he had no qualms running into what was supposedly a burning building and risking a 60-feet fall to break into his neighbor's apartment. Annie always tells him, only half-joking, she worries that he'll get himself murdered getting involved with a serial killer, but not even she could have predicted this latest twist.

He turns towards Noah, who's sitting butt naked on the soaked champagne-colored cushions, looking like a misplaced but nonetheless stunning Greek statue. Chris takes a deep breath and waits for a sense of dread, for revulsion, or at least neon red blinking warning signs in his head that tell him 'Abort! Abort!'. When none of it comes, he shrugs and pushes on.

"So, how about I show you how human... um, mating rituals work, and you show me yours. You know, in the interest of interplanetary understanding." He grins and trails his finger up Noah's arm, pleased to see the now familiar flush blooming on the other man's cheeks again. 

He's already thinking about all the things he wants to teach Noah when he suddenly remembers something. "Wait— You don't, like, eat your partners or something, right? Because as much as I like you, that would be bit of a deal-breaker."

Noah laughs, warm and throaty and genuine. "No. I can assure you, no killing or anything that would be harmful to humans involved. Human society has been deemed 87.53% compatible with ours. Otherwise visiting wouldn't be allowed, in the interest of preventing unfortunate accidents."

It sounds like there's a story there that's either hilarious or horrifying or both. Chris wants to ask, but decides there'll be sufficient time for that later. 

For now, he has some interplanetary understanding to facilitate.

End.


End file.
